Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday February 13, 2013 @09:11AM
from the climate-change-is-change-we-can-believe-in dept.

astroengine writes "President Barack Obama called for 'meaningful progress' on tackling climate change in his State of the Union speech in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. While acknowledging that 'no single event makes a trend,' the President noted that the United States had been buffeted by extreme weather events that in many cases encapsulated the predictions of climate scientists. 'But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods — all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it's too late,' Obama added."
Other significant statements from Obama's speech: 34,000 troops coming back from Afghanistan over the next year; new gun regulations "deserve a vote"; rewards for schools that focus on STEM education; increases in tech research; a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.00/hr and tie it to inflation; and a proposal to use oil and gas revenues to fund a move away from oil and gas,

What else do you expect? It's a speech, not a bill. I suppose he could get up there and read proposed legislation but about the middle of paragraph 2, everybody would tune out, including Congress. THEY don't even read bills on the House floor.

It strikes me that if you just let this man run the country for the remainder of his term without obstruction America could be the country that most people in the world have been told it is. And the whole world would be a better place.

Alternatively you can obstruct him at every turn and show that you are hypocrites that talk democracy and freedom, but are nothing more than corporate shrills doing the bidding of lobbyists, none of which are working for the American people, let alone the world.

And if you won't, for fuck sake let him run another country. Australia would love to have Obama as the leader. People of his mien come once a generation FFS.

Yeah as an Aussie I would say I'd much rather Obama than any of our politicians at the moment. They seem to have one of the easiest political jobs in the world and yet still fail to remotely suggest any grand future plans for our country, just more of the same sh*t I've been hearing for years.

Alternatively you can obstruct him at every turn and show that you are hypocrites that talk democracy and freedom

So, what you are proposing is that Congressmen prove that they are in favor of democracy by voting the opposite of the way their constituents elected them to vote and that they are in favor of freedom by voting to support a man who believes that the government can order you to act against your religious beliefs?
Considering that polls consistently show that more U.S. citizens oppose Obama's policies than support them, I am not sure how you get the idea that voting for his policies represents democracy in ac

The government has always had an absolute ability to order you to act against your religious beliefs.

Your religion might demand that you punch strangers in the face, or oppose interracial marriage. The government orders you not to go around punching people in the face, or to run a car dealership that refuses to serve interracial couples. "Freedom of religion" protections guarantee that you can continue believing and preaching that God is sending the country to hell for its lack of face-punching or abundance

You have a serious problem with things the government is doing, allowing others to do, and/or requiring others to do. As a Christian, so do I (on many issues)! The problem here is that you are assuming the First Amendment has a mystical absolute reach (which Obama has presumably violated) that it has never actually had --- throughout this countries' history of jurisprudence (not just beginning with Obama), the government has, by balancing against other (contradictory!) legal principles, placed boundaries on

He's a president, not a king; certainly not a god. He is not our ruler, but our leader. We do not serve him; he serves us. I realize that most of the world doesn't get this (at least, not the places in Europe and Asia where I've lived), but we Americans really do take the idea of citizenship and the republic quite seriously. And somehow, I doubt you were saying the same thing when Bush was president. (Not that he was great shakes either, but it's odd how so many people who had a real problem with Bush ostensibly on policy grounds are fine with those policies executed by Obama instead.)

We do not serve him; he serves us. I realize that most of the world doesn't get this

Including folks in the USA. The president is who we chose. Putting him in office then telling him "No" every time he tries to do something is just ridiculous. We elected him, why and how is it possible to elect someone to our top-most leadership position and at the same time elect people who intentionally block him from doing *anything* at all? Something is seriously fucked up here.

I think that you've drunk way too much of the kool-aid. Obama is a decent guy, but he isn't a mini-god. Many of his progressive ideas are not being realized due to his inability or his opponents unwillingness to bring about compromise.

It strikes me that if you just let this man run the country for the remainder of his term without obstruction America could be the country that most people in the world have been told it is.

A socialist empire who takes care of its citizenry? Sorry, that's Europe.

If you look at history and world opinion, America is generally thought of as being a defiant, controlling bully in international space. There are both economic (oil) and historical (WWII, national security) reasons for that.

Internally, America was built on the foundation of freedom from British oppression and taxation. So it is only natural that many US citizens will oppose government efforts to both increase taxation and oppress what are currently viewed as freedoms.

And the whole world would be a better place.

That's purely your opinion. Obama has done some good (health care), but has also had a lot of bad things continue to happen under his watch:1. The US is still involved in Afganistan.2. North Korea and Iran are still defiantly working towards nuclear programs and torturing their citizens.3. Russia has become significantly more aggressive towards the US.4. China continues to destroy the US though cyberattacks and economic undercutting.5. The US economy collapsed and kicked off an international collapse.6. The Israelis and Palestinians are still at each other throats.7. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia are in a state of political upheaval and are at risk of being taken over by religiously oppressive regimes.8. Syrian people are being killed with no international assistance.9. The US supplied Mexican drug cartels with US weapons.10. Shooting rampages appear to have increased.11. Gitmo is still Gitmo.12. Like previous presidents, Obama also has acknowledged the need to maintain a kill list. What is particularly special is that his list also can include US citizens.13. The US deficit continues to go the wrong direction.14. The US congress partisanship is still stifling any change.

So reviewing history as it currently stands gives me the impression that it's been more "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" and less "hope and change."

Alternatively you can obstruct him at every turn and show that you are hypocrites that talk democracy and freedom, but are nothing more than corporate shrills doing the bidding of lobbyists, none of which are working for the American people, let alone the world.

Bullshit. All good qualities aside, Obama is a politician to the core. He wants to do what he perceives as good things for the country. But above all else, he wants to be in power. To do this, he has had to cater to lobbyists and special interest groups just like every other politician in power.

And if you won't, for fuck sake let him run another country. Australia would love to have Obama as the leader.

Many in the US would buy him a first class plane ticket out of the country.

And his "investment in clean energy" historically seems to just mean little more than handing out a billion dollars to businesses who had nothing but powerpoint slides. (And who had probably greased lobbyists palms with silver.)

He's no hero, he's just a businessman who's currently CEO of the biggest business in the world, one that answers to noone, and who's friendly with lots of other businessmen who only answer to him.

Governments are not businesses. They print money, they don't trade for it. Citizens might be analogous to a "shareholder" but in point of fact it's an entirely different legal arrangement. You might consider it a natural monopoly on the use of force, but citizens can't exactly cancel their subscription to that.

Governments are bad enough without trying to drag in inapplicable concepts to mismanage them with. They are not businesses, they should not be run as businesses, and electing someone to the Presidency

Talk is cheap, and the State of the Union address is about pageantry and blowing hot air, not anything that will actually happen. Come back to me when you have a serious effort, which will probably involve legislation, a budget, an actual agency, probably some grant programs, and other tangible steps. Come back to me when thanks to some serious efforts and funding, we have solar or geothermal or hydro power that could handle the entire energy needs of the US. Come back to me when you have serious conservation efforts that make Americans not the most wasteful people on the planet.

You know, people made fun of Jimmy Carter suggesting things like turning down the thermostat and wearing a sweater, and for installing solar panels on the White House, but he was basically right about the necessary course of action.

The possibility of a new ice age was definitely out there in popular media. Big cover story in Newsweek, for example. It was the kind of story that sells. And I'm old enough to have been there at the time too.

It was NEVER taken very seriously in the scientific press, though. Go do any searches through the serious scientific magazines and you'll find that even in the 60s and 70s the vast majority of articles in serious scientific journals focused on the possibility of future warming caused by greenhouse gases, not future cooling because an ice age was overdue.

The climate change story is fairly consistent. The changes to climate cause weird weather. Weather that's out of place and unusual for where it's occurring. 80% of the weird weather involves too much heat, but some places will locally see cooler than normal weather at times.

Regardless of weather Fox takes it seriously, it's difficult to find more than a handful of climate scientists who don't accept the science behind climate change and global warming.

There was never anything approaching a scientific consensus about global cooling, and indeed it was debunked as a hypothesis within a few months of appearing on the radar.

Were you even alive in the seventies? That wasn't how I remember it at all. It made the covers of a whole bunch of news magazines for a while. As child I remember reading about it a lot wondering about the threat of a new ice age. Except maybe politically, it was every bit as big of a deal then as global warming is now. Whether or not a 'consensus' was reached among scientists is irrelevant to me. I don't consider opinion polls to be science. All I know is that at the time it was a very big deal in magazines and on television. I don't remember exactly how long, but for more than a few months. There was one group of people who seemed pretty sure that we were headed towards another ice age and another group who were skeptical. Sounds familiar.

And global warming as a popular consensus is very recent. I can tell by your UID that you are at least old enough to know that. When I took my university meteorology class in the early 90s global warming was presented as a mere theory. Not a consensus. Not something that was proven. Just a theory that may or may not be true. The evidence that recent warming was caused by man was considered inconclusive by both the textbook and the professor teaching the glass. Now all of a sudden it has become a 'fact' despite the fact that the evidence for it hasn't changed much.

No, the big scare that was that the revolution in Iran in 1979 was cutting off the supplies of oil to the US, which was already causing gasoline shortages and other serious problems. Environmental concerns had nothing to do with it.

All of the carbon it claims is attached to nuclear is also attached to building the infrastructure that is necessary for solar, geothermal and hydro and the article you linked to states as much. The article you linked to goes on to say "[Nuclear] even does better than solar power and small-scale hydro projects." This is largely because carbon producing plants are predominantly providing the energy source for the manufacturing and construction operations (it doesn't have to be that way through). Man you s

Now, I'm no economics expert... But aren't minimum wage increases one of the (albeit small) contributors to inflation? And as such, wouldn't tying minimum wage increases to inflation create a circular reference of sorts?

If we were smart we would increase the minimum wage and at the same time impose tariffs and regulations on importing goods from countries that do not meet minimum human rights, worker pay, and environmental standards. But nobody wants to take on China so we will not do it. So a minimum wage increase if passed at all will increase outsourcing enough to offset inflation contribution.

So what about the people who get income not in the form of wages?They should raise the basic income but there is no basic income yet unless you count welfare and welfare is hard to get and they want to make people pay a fee to get it in North Dakota, see: http://www.topix.com/forum/health/womens-health/TEII96LUBC3DL8UJJ [topix.com]

But aren't minimum wage increases one of the (albeit small) contributors to inflation?

Some economists think that average wage increases are the primary cause of inflation, some think that price increases in important commodities are the primary cause of inflation. If you're in the first camp, then the importance of a minimum wage increase depends on what percentage of workers make minimum wage, which in the US is about 1% of all workers. If you're in the second camp, then the minimum wage increase has no effect on prices.

And as such, wouldn't tying minimum wage increases to inflation create a circular reference of sorts?

Of sorts, but the effects would probably vary a lot based on what industries we're talking about. The risk is this: The increase in pay leads to an increase in the price of, say, hamburgers, which leads to inflation, which leads to an increase in pay, in a vicious cycle. The alternative is that the increase in pay leads to decreased profits for McDonalds Inc shareholders, which has no effects on inflation whatsoever.

Economic history would suggest that inflation is caused by the government increasing money supply faster than the underlying material support (of population, resources and productivity) can rise, and deflation is the opposite. Which would explain why, for example, highly innovative industries like electronics and highly competitive industries like plastic surgery can see falling prices in an otherwise inflating economy, while low competition or low innovation or resource constrained sectors can see rising prices even in an otherwise deflating economy.

I doubt that minimum wage changes affect prices much. But by raising the cost of labor, they certainly affect unemployment among the least well off, because there are fewer jobs that are profitable to hire out at, say, $9 per hour than at, say, $6 per hour.

It impacts more than just the big businesses profit. Many fast food restaurants are franchised. The details change but many times the store owner just kicks back a fixed percentage of revenue to the corporate office. When minimum wage increases that fixed percentage doesn't decrease. The profit margin in these businesses is typically not large say 10% or less of revenue and labor may come in at 20% of revenue (some of the big players like mcdonalds may have different numbers but these are representative of the numbers for smaller places in my community). The last change in minimum wage was almost a 40% increase (5.15 to 7.25) well if all else stays the same, in that scenario labor cost just went to 28% and profit went close to 0 or worse. The only options are to raise prices (which is a business killer in fast food) or to cut staff and hope the service doesn't degrade.

It works the other way around. Bring back US manufacturing jobs and there will be more demand for US engineers.
Our jobs didn't get outsourced for lack of US skills. They got outsourced due to wage scales. How are you going to compete when some guy in China can do your job for less than the US poverty level?

The way we compete with China and India is by improving our skill sets and by automating our factories. If we don't need hundreds and thousands of workers as cheap labor, then we don't need to outsource of jobs. 3D printing is one example of tech that can help. AI may be can help too in this.
The other thing that can help is high skill tech jobs like game programming. If more and more folks in the US start learning skills that are sparse then we don't need as many folks from India to do the same jobs. There

Nobody has lost a job in the US because someone else could do the job in another country for less.

I can safely say this because while labor may make up a high proportion of the costs of goods and services that you buy, manufacturing labor (as in "people who man assembly lines" - the people who actually lose their jobs when Dell closes a factory and buys circuit boards from Foxconn) make up a tiny proportion of the labor portion. The classic 80:20 rule, which applied during the 1980s and is, today, even w

"Nobody has lost a job in the US because someone else could do the job in another country for less."

Hrmm. Obviously, you've never worked in IT.

I know hundreds of people who were removed from their positions because someone on the other side of the planet could do the same job (actually, they did the job much worse, but apparently that's irrelevant compared to cost) for less than half the price, plus, they aren't being employed as an "employee" so, no health care, matching 401k contributions, or any of that other nonsense that makes a regular employee so expensive.

Because the trend is to turn us into either unemployed, or independent contractors, or temporary workers. An independent contractor can work for lower than minimum wage so the minimum wage doesn't matter when not everyone is paid in wages. Why not minimum income? Why not government guaranteed basic income? Watch this video for more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sDBF_MbflY [youtube.com]

Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods — all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it's too late,' Obama added."

They *could* be just a freak coincidence...sure they probably aren't, but it's practically impossible to pin individual weather events, or even a pattern of weather events over the span of a decade or two, on global warming. If you toss around bullshit and FUD to support action on global warming you're becoming the enemy to beat the enemy, while simultaneously feeding into their conspiracy theories and jokes.

Just like every other State of the Union, it doesn't tell us one damn thing we didn't already know. "The planet's getting warmer." "The poor don't have any money." "Rich people don't pay enough taxes." Zzzzz...

How about this:

"My fellow Americans: yes, the aliens are real. We used to keep them at Roswell, but that got a little too touristy, so Lyndon Johnson had them moved to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Ain't nobody gonna look there," he said, and he was right. Oh, and I really was born in Kenya - suck it."

Sadly we know the Obama boilerplate speech by heart, and so the inaugural address was by now unfortunately straw-man psychodrama. Five years ago, the well-delivered script caused fainting, now it should earn mostly yawns: Fault the well off; invest more borrowed money in more federal programs that have no demonstrable record of success; blame the bad news on others; ignore the $1 trillion-plus annual borrowing; threaten to use more executive orders; demonize the opposition; take bad news abroad and declare it good, and fluff everything up with the hope-and-change cadences that address the trivial and avoid the fundamental.

He wrote that about the inaugural address, but frankly it also applies to the State of the Union, and pretty much every other public utterance by this President.

Well, if he was a Republican... he'd do the same, then lower taxes. Maybe a hair different on what exactly he'd spend it on, but otherwise, very little difference.

There's so little actual difference left between the two parties' stances that the strife and "you people"-ing has long since ceased to make sense. Why then even do it? Clearly it's not about any actual issue, and hasn't been for a long, long time.

My vote, this time and last, happened to be for the Democrat. But, I wasn't voting "for" the democrat, so much as I was voting "against" the other guy.

Give us some mainstream, centrist choices, who aren't bought and paid for by corporate interests, then I might vote for that choice. Until then, there is no difference between the parties. The single most important issue in America today, is that idiot "War on Terra". Has Obama attempted to have the Patriot Act repealed? Nope. Has he attempted to reign in Homeland Security? Nope. Has he renounced any of the special powers that the Bush administration pushed for? Nope. Has he fought for internet freedom? Well - sorta. Internet freedom was a great thing when the Arab Spring was blooming, but it's no longer a good political tool, so Obama follows Bush's lead now, pushing for more and more control.

The same corporations own both parties, so there is no reason to vote "for" either one.

You bring up decent points, but I think you misstep when you blame the "corporations". The reason that different parties keep the powers that the other parties obtained is that they want to keep the power and the tools the other guy got them. Obama not returning those powers is all on Obama. If you blame external parties for the government's failures, they're going to keep using it as an excuse to keep doing what they want, while trying to sell you on their latest plan to deal with "evil corporations" at

Coming up on this last election, I made the mistake of thinking the appropriate question was really, "why vote for either of them". For this reason, among others.

But now I'm left wondering if I screwed up. Not that my vote matters more than anyone else, but I was listening to the Address and thinking, as much as I disliked Romney, would his Address have been, "spend billions, raise taxes, ban guns, spend billions more"? I don't think it would have been. His platform, for all the things I disagreed with, w

You might want to read that article again. I didn't say that Reagan passed a ban. As the article you linked states, Reagan supported both the 1993 'Brady Bill' (aiming to create a national background check and mandatory waiting period) and the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Indeed, the article you linked calls that a "180-degree turnaround" from his earlier stance on gun control.

Yeah, god forbid Congress set our tax levels back up to the high rates of the Ronald Reagan era. That Reagan dude was clearly a fucking socialist.

If we can set spending levels there, too, it might just work. But if you're nervous about a 42% cut in federal spending, we could just go back to Clinton-era spending (when they actually came really close to balancing the budget), which would only be a 35% spending cut.

The budget being balanced wasn't planned. It was an accident caused by the internet bubble, many people selling over priced stocks, and having to pay taxes on the profit.

The housing bubble was an attempt to keep things going, and while it resulted in increased revenues, the continued increases in planned increases, plus the new drug benefit, unfunded wars kept us well in the red during the last decade.

Basically, Regan, Clinton, both Bushes and Obama have all allowed spending to remain out of control as well as all members of Congress who don't actually propose to cut the actual amount of money being spent.

If I were the president, I'd propose a strong evaluation of military spending, keep the CIA, FBI, State Department, and the EPA, and turn almost everything else over to the states. That is, the government would concern itself with international relations and matters between the states, or that spill over state borders, and leave everything else to the states to figure out, especially medicare, social security and education.

The last time we had a REAL surplus (not just something on paper) - a surplus where the Federal Government received more revenue than it spent - was in 1957. Source [treasurydirect.gov].

The referenced Wiki pages are for projected, on-budget spending surpluses - not overall. It's like you balance your own personal budget by ignoring your spending on your car, or mortgage interest... Take all Federal spending together, though, and we have not had a real, cash-basis surplus since 1957, in the Eisenhower Administration.

Yeah, god forbid Congress set our tax levels back up to the high rates of the Ronald Reagan era. That Reagan dude was clearly a fucking socialist.

Tax revenue is more than just marginal tax rates - it also includes deductions. For example, consider the "hey day" of high marginal rates, the late 50s, back when the top marginal rates were 90%+ - and we ran an actual surplus (which has not happened since 1957).

In constant 2011 dollars, federal tax receipts in 1957 were $3200 per person.

Today, with the "much lower" marginal rates, federal tax receipts in 2011 were $6600 per person.

We're collecting over twice the revenue per capita - in constant dollars - now, with huge deficits, versus in 1957 when we had actual surpluses (and paid down the debt). We had many, many more deductions back in the high marginal tax rate days than we do today, allowing for a much lower level of actual taxation (less than 50% effective of what we pay today).

The problem is not - NOT - revenue. It is spending. The Federal Government is spending over 3 TIMES more per capita, in constant dollars, than it did back in those high-marginal rate days. We have a massive spending (and scope of activity) problem, NOT a revenue problem.

The problem is not - NOT - revenue. It is spending. The Federal Government is spending over 3 TIMES more per capita, in constant dollars, than it did back in those high-marginal rate days.

Sorry, but that doesn't prove we're spending too much. In fact, we may still be spending too little. The optimal amount is the amount where spending an additional dollar brings less than a dollar in economic benefits. Only when you can prove we're past that point will you be able to truthfully claim that we have a spendin

The optimal amount is the amount where spending an additional dollar brings less than a dollar in economic benefits. Only when you can prove we're past that point will you be able to truthfully claim that we have a spending problem.

Your standard of evidence is backward. It's always safer to assume that spending is just consumption, not investment, unless there is evidence to support the position that it produces more in economic benefits (net present value, of course) than it costs. Those who claim that additional spending will result in a positive ROI are the ones with something to prove.

This is an impossible task, of course, as economic benefit is not something you can aggregate and measure across individuals in a non-voluntary system. Voluntary trade may not result in an ideal allocation of resource, but no non-voluntary system can objectively be said to produce a better allocation—just one more in line with the preferences of the few specific individuals in charge.

Good news! We're nearly there. The average outlays for fiscal years FY82 through FY89 was 22.3 percent of GDP. The average for FY09 through FY11 has been 24.5 percent of GDP. Compare that to the receipts averages of 18.0 and 15.2 percent, respectively. I think most Democrats would be perfectly fine with outlays of 22.3 percent of GDP. The 2015 estimate is 22.3 percent, in fact.

Here's another way to look at it. The average deficit for FY82 through FY89 was 4.3% of GDP. The estimation of FY13 through

Obama is dealing with a major recession, two wars that were funded by the clever strategy of cutting taxes, a population with a higher average age, and much higher medical costs per person (even before Obamacare). Reagan's tax cuts took care of the recession when he entered office, but even after his early tax cuts the taxes were far higher than they are now.

George W Bush tried to repeat Reagan's magic with his 2002 tax cuts to stimulate the economy, but 2007 taught us that the economic stimulus we sa

The debt ceiling increased under all but Bush's first year, even when Congress was Republican controlled or split. Of course, Bush and Obama have war expenses that previous administrations, starting with Reagan, didn't have. And Obama takes the hit for significantly reduced tax receipts due to the recession. It's more complicated than "[insert the party you don't like] sucks!

Of course, Bush grew the federal deficit by more than twice what Obama has... and if you look back at records of the increase/decrease in the federal deficit each year since the current federal debt began, you'll find that almost every year that the deficit has been decreased, a Democrat was President.

Of course, Bush grew the federal deficit by more than twice what Obama has...

Citation needed. The last Bush deficit - FY2008 - was $461 billion. FY2009 was signed by President Obama [wikipedia.org] and had a $1.4 trillion deficit. Since then, every year (not budget - there hasn't been one for 3+ years) has seen more than $1 trillion in deficit spending. The actual facts are that President Obama more than tripled the worst President Bush deficit - and has seen those deficits hold over his entire first term.

Much of the deficit increase in 2009 was due to existing "safety net" programs such as food stamps and unemployment insurance that kicked in in response to the depression, which was already underway when Obama took office. The rest was due to the financial bailout, in which Obama followed through on the bailout devised under the Bush administration. Obama brought an end to the growth in Federal spending [nytimes.com]

There was a certain King Canute who went to the beach one day and ordered the tide to stop flowing. I can imagine Obama's ideas and efforts will have exactly the same effect.

Your analogy is terrible. History and other countries have shown that industry and consumers don't give a shit about the environment. And that goes for both capitalistic and socialistic societies. We've shown in the past that government regulation can fix things like CFCs and the pollution of drinking water so what's so batshit insane about proposing we fix this with regulations?

Your analogy would work if King Canute had previously ordered a lake to split in two and it had worked.

While he's at it he should make tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes illegal.

I don't know what this is? Some throwback to that bullshit logic about gun control? I guess people are still being murdered so we should revoke all the laws outlawing murders? I mean, when murdering is outlawed then only murderers will have the ability to murder people!

It's not about controlling the weather. The weather is a symptom of the problem of spewing tons and tons of carbon and greenhouse gases into the air and environment. So he's tackling the root cause of the problem, not making a symptom illegal... is this some new parroted right-wing narrative you're getting from Facebook or something?

It's also incorrect. The story is not about Canute's arrogance but his humility. He wanted to show his adherents that a king may not command everything so he illustrated, so the story goes, by commanding the tide with predictable results.

Like Guy Fawkes in America, he is now remembered for doing exactly the opposite of what he did.

While he's at it he should make tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes illegal.

I don't understand how you can construe this out of what was written. He's not proposing "legislation against nature" yet you somehow managed to interpret it this way. Does '12 hottest years on record' not lead you to any kind of logical clarity?

I don't get your point. The Danes did not try to outlaw the tides. They constructed protection against them. The tides are still there.

The argument here is that by and large climate change politics is about trying to outlaw the tides. It just won't work. Sure the science is indisputable. The climate is changing and humans affect the environment. However the still overlooked inconvenient truth is that it is just as certain that climate change cannot be reversed. To survive our society will have to adapt to a

He didn't say the war would be won, only that it would end. He also only promised 34,000 troops would come home, which would set the troop levels in Afghanistan to about the same level they were at when Bush was in office.

"U.S. troops" is a specific term that does not include "private security" (read: mercenaries), contractors, DoD "consultants", State Department, CIA, etc., etc. What's left in Iraq is the largest embassy in the world (they call it a "complex"), with tons of military equipment like Apache

Where on Earth did you read this? Are you confusing Afghanistan with Iraq?

Like they did the last few times they announced a "full withdraw"? The only thing I find more amazing than official US propaganda is that most people seem to believe it.

[citations needed] on the "last few times" and I'm almost certain that they never have announced a "full withdraw" (why do you even bother using quotes on that phrase). Actually, it's really hard but if you read the summary he announced the removal of 34,000 troops. Removing 34,000 != "full withdraw"

Seriously, are you ripping on him for something no one ever said? It's really hard to talk about "Official US propaganda" when y

Do you remember what happened when he actually tried to close it? Congress refused to let it happen. The only way he's going to get the detention camp closed is if he orders the release of all the prisoners.

...which is what he should do, given the dubious legality of the prison camp to begin with. And yes, there will be people pointing the finger at him, but he has at least three excellent come back arguments:

1. Congress has had years to do something about this and has refused to act.

2. The camp is unconstitutional.

3. The camp does more harm than good.

The problem is we have a President who prefers to appear to be a wimpy appeaser of right wing extremists than be an actual liberal.

The problem is we have a President who prefers to appear to be a wimpy appeaser of right wing extremists than be an actual liberal.

Are you sure you got your "right wing" and "liberal" labels right? Let's review some simple definitions and connotations.

One point of view, is that the constitution is a "living document" and need not be strictly adhered to. Government's powers and responsibilties are flexible, and change with the times. Tradition is overrated. "Tried and True" strategies can become obsolete. Government leads. The vision shared by the many, outweighs the rights of a few. Be expedient and pragmatic, in the pursuit of performance and progress.

The other point of view, is that constitution is a strict limitation on powers and responsibilities, and if conditions change, the people can damn well pass an amendment. Government power should remain as limited as possible. When in doubt, do things like they've always been done. Some things change, but human nature doesn't change. Our basic relationship with the government, and the social contract itself, doesn't change. Government needs to get out of the way, much less lead. The rights of the few outweigh the desires of the many. Respect the rule of law, even if inconvenient or costly.

Let me ask you: which of the two above PoVs is conservative and which is liberal? (Each actually has its weak and strong points! but I'm not talking about which you agree with, just where you put each one on the spectrum.)

When I think of extra-judicial processes not authorized by the constitution, I think of FDR's Japanese internments. And I damn well know which side of the political spectrum we all put FDR on. But maybe that's just me. Is FDR considered "conservative" now? Am I all wrong about the right/left -ness of Gitmo (and by extension, Republicans vs Democrats on this issue), or are you?:-)

Do people actually believe that nonsense? Obama is left, not left center, not center, left. The majority of what he does is extremely partisan, which is why many believe he may officially be the most divisive president in history.

Unfortunately, people to believe this. It scares me on how extreme that means a lot of our people are.

Try them where? Last time we even suggested it, all the states called foul and started a "zomg a terrorist comin' to arr state" campaign. I think it was only NY that accepted a trial at a considerable "security upgrade" charge to the feds.

When did the definition of tyranny become "Government doing something I don't like"? Because that sure seems to be what people are meaning by the word these days.

If you think Obama is breaking the law, give solid examples. If you think he is lying, give facts that attempt to prove your case. If and when your facts are shown to be lacking, acknowledge the fact and come up with a different argument. At the moment the people that don't like Obama are throwing words around like rocks but I never, EVER see any facts coming about.

I hate what is going on with the drones, but the absolute lack of rationality in Obama's opposition right now keeps driving me to make comments. Get some rational leaders and get some good arguments with honest to goodness FACTS that aren't simply word twisting and I'm sure people will listen to your side, but right now you're no better than the loud, drunk redneck in a saloon.

The definition of tyranny was and remains a government that does not protect the natural rights of its people. The fact that people don't like a government which, like ours, routinely abrogates those rights does not mean that the abrogation is not tyrannical. So just to give one example, the President asserts the right to kill Americans without due process if he deems them to be a terrorist threat, even in America, on the theory that "the battlefield is everywhere." Is that, the utter abrogation of the right to life, not to be taken without due process of law (which doesn't simply mean making a law, or worse a regulation, or worst an executive order), not tyranny? And before you stalk off about this, yes, Bush was tyrannical, too, as witness the Padilla case.

I have engaged in plenty of arguments with conservatives, on the Wall Street Journal comments pages and elsewhere.

I started out thinking, "They read the Wall Street Journal, how stupid can they be." Boy, was I wrong. I picked out people who seemed to be more intelligent. It was hopeless.

In the area that I know a lot about, health policy, they were repeating Republican and conservative talking points over and over again. I used to link to peer-reviewed journals. They would just dismiss it. ("Hah! The New Eng

Please read the entire second amendment. It mentions the need for a "well regulated militia"

Please read the Supreme Court ruling DC v Heller [wikipedia.org], and their ruling in McDonald v Chicago [wikipedia.org]. The right to bear arms is for the individual, and is incorporated to the individual. It is not about a militia, but personal firearm ownership.

Unless, of course, you know more about case law and the Constitution than the US Supreme Court...

Are you seriously rolling out the much-debunked myth that there was a scientific consensus in the 1970s that we were heading into an ice age? I was reading the scientific literature back then, and I can tell you that that is simply nonsense. This notion seems to date mostly from a sensationalistic article in Time magazine based on the views of a fringe scientist. All of that literature can be found in any major university library, and much of it is available online, so you can check for yourself. Even in th